


Sketch Me a Smile

by tamerofdarkstars



Category: One Piece
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Sketching, one piece is taking over my life, post-Arlong Park, the requested usopp drawing fic, usopp is an arteest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 18:13:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1992807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamerofdarkstars/pseuds/tamerofdarkstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There isn't a single sketch of Nami in Usopp's sketchbook.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sketch Me a Smile

**Author's Note:**

  * For [volee_weva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/volee_weva/gifts).



> I am a fucking weeb and One Piece has consumed my entire life. I regret nothing.
> 
> This is a birthday fic for my beautiful Volee - the weeb who got me into this stupid anime in the first place. I love you, beautiful!
> 
> This is set in the vague era just after the Arlong Park arc, the first of many arcs that shattered my soul into pieces, so the only Straw Hat crewmembers are Usopp, Nami, Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji.

The sketchbook was deep red, worn and weathered with age, and one of the few things Usopp took with him when he left his village (well, one of the few things he took and _kept,_ that is). The first few pages were full of sketches of the people of his village - his pirate gang, smiling and laughing. Kaya, leaning out her window with a breeze catching her hair. 

He loved drawing - it was cathartic, a soothing process that calmed his racing mind. Usopp would draw just about anything when he was in the mood, but what he really loved was people. He loved drawing people, loved putting all their little details into smudged lines and shadows, loved that just the tiniest flick of his pencil could change an expression.

And his nakama were all so incredibly expressive that not long after boarding the _Going Merry_ , they became the only people he drew.

Usopp sat on the deck in the sun, leaning against the railing as he put the finishing touches on his latest sketch. He'd been dying to draw Sanji for a few days, ever since he'd come across the cook having a midnight cigarette.

_"Sanji, you're still awake?"_

_Sanji blew a heavy ring of smoke into the night air, looking down and away from the moon. "Yeah, couldn't sleep."_

_The waves lapped against the hull, gentle in the still air. If Usopp listened closely, he could barely hear Luffy snoring._

_They were silent for a long moment, both just leaning on the railing and staring out at the waves, wrapped up in their own thoughts._

_"Do you think it exists?"_

_Usopp blinked, snapping out of the almost hypnotic doze the ocean had lulled him into. "What?"_

_"All Blue." Sanji grinned at him around his cigarette, clamping the end between his teeth._

_Usopp blinked. He'd never particularly thought about it before - Sanji believed so completely that he supposed he just believed by association._

_But when he thought about it, really thought about it, he could almost see it. A massive ocean, full of fish of all shapes and sizes and Usopp imagined Sanji's face, that wide grin and the light dancing in his eyes and realized yes, he believed. If Sanji believed so wholeheartedly in All Blue, then by golly, so did Usopp._

_"Yeah, I do. And I believe we’re gonna find it."_

_Sanji grinned up at the moon, the smoke swirling up around his head. "It's gonna be awesome."_

_Usopp nodded, a grin spreading across his own face. "Yeah."_

Usopp frowned and, with the side of one thumb, smudged the smoke from Sanji's cigarette. He'd captured the brilliant light that always made the chef seem years younger whenever he talked about his dream, that wide childish grin that Sanji didn’t even direct at food. Picture-Sanji beamed out at him, eyes bright and alive and Usopp grinned back.

Across the deck, Zoro snoozed in the sun while Nami read a map, reclining back in a deck chair. She had her ankles crossed and the wind was tossing her hair around her head, only held back from escaping completely by her sunglasses.

There was nothing in her peaceful expression that hinted of the events they’d just escaped. Even her new tattoo looked crisp and healed, stark against her pale shoulder. A tangerine and a pinwheel.

Usopp looked away quickly, trying to ignore the sudden stab of guilt. His red sketchbook contained dozens of drawings of his nakama – Luffy, stretching around a corner to snag a bit of food. Luffy sleeping, mouth wide open. Luffy, with that terrifying "you messed with my nakama" look on his face, a storm cloud crackling overhead.

Zoro, masked and fighting, his three swords glinting in the smudged out sun. Zoro, stretched out like a cat, napping peacefully on the deck, arms behind his head.

Sanji, cooking breakfast, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Sanji, cigarette smoke in wisps around his head. Sanji, big cartoon hearts in his eyes, chasing a woman just off the page. 

There was, however, one nakama significantly absent from the book and it twisted Usopp’s guts into embarrassed, guilty knots just to think about it.

"Oi, Usopp!" Luffy appeared out of nowhere, bounding up the steps to skid to a halt in front of him and shaking him from his thoughts. "Time for lunch, let's go get some-- whoa, is that Sanji!?"

Usopp squeaked in terror, trying to slam the book shut but failing as Luffy's arm stretched twice its normal length and snatched the sketchbook right out of his hands.

"Cool!" Their captain shrieked, drawing the attention of everyone on board. "Usopp, you're so good!" He began to flip thorough the book.

Usopp started to panic, jumping up. "Luffy, ah, thanks but can you just keep it down...!"

"Whoa, it's me! Hey, Zoro, look, here's you! This is awesome!" 

Usopp made a desperate grab for the book but Luffy had already handed it off to Zoro, who lifted it to study the drawing of himself Luffy had pointed out. 

"Huh. This isn't bad, Usopp." He grinned, tapping the picture-Zoro's face.

Sanji snatched it out of Zoro's hands. "Look, he even got the hilts on your katanas right." The cook pointed out, flipping the page. It was a very recent sketch of both Zoro and Sanji that Usopp had been rather proud of - he'd blurred the lines around the two, sketching them arguing, but still managing to capture a glimpse of the clear affection that simmered just beneath the surface. The dual expressions had been challenging, but well worth all the pencil he’d used up getting them exactly right.

Usopp glimpsed which picture Sanji had stopped on and promptly turned bright red. Sanji blinked, his half-grin slipping into something strange and surprised as he studied the sketch, but before he could speak a word, Nami was grabbing the book out of his hands.

"Let me see!"

Usopp's stomach dropped into his boots.

"I'd really rather you didn’t!" Usopp squeaked, but Nami was already leafing through the pages, turning them gently and carefully, like she knew how much the drawings meant to him.

After a few seconds, however, her smile faltered, and a few more pages later she was closing the book, handing it back. "They're good!" She said, and Usopp's heart thudded to the floor. There was a smile on her face that just barely didn't reach her eyes – a fake, almost plastic smile he thought she’d left behind her with the rubble remains of her old prison. "You're really talented."

"Nami--" he started, but she was already turning away. 

"Come on, everyone! Sanji's food is getting cold!"

"Food!" Luffy took off like a bullet towards the galley and Zoro followed, hollering after him to slow down, leave some food for the rest of them. A pensive Sanji trailed behind and Usopp was left clutching his sketchbook, alone on the deck. Suddenly, he didn't really feel much like eating.

Nami's feelings had been clearly hurt – after all, there wasn't a single sketch of her in Usopp's book. From her view, it probably looked like Usopp just didn't particularly care to draw her. Maybe she even thought he didn't consider her nakama.

The thought turned Usopp's stomach, making it roll unpleasantly. 

How was he supposed to tell her the truth?

-

Nami retreated to her room after lunch, which caused a ripple of concern through Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji. They tossed hypotheses back and forth as to why she was upset, beating the subject to death until Usopp couldn't take it anymore and hid in the bunkroom, head in his hands.

Either he let Nami continue to believe that he didn't care enough to draw her, or he came out and told the truth. 

Usopp wasn't sure which one would be more painful.

It was the memory of her face that finally drove Usopp to his feet. That brittle smile, made of nothing but willpower, had been plastered over her face so quickly the others hadn’t even noticed the transition. But for Usopp, who had paid so much attention to her real smile in the days following Luffy’s destruction of Arlong Park, the difference was painfully obvious. 

He found himself at Nami's door minutes later, a small blue sketchbook clenched in one sweaty fist. The second he knocked he regretted it, fear racing through him, rising up in his throat until he couldn’t breathe. 

He could lie - make something up. "Oh, yeah, the pictures of you! A, a whale ate one, oh man, that's a funny story, whew, and uh, I spilled juice on the other ones and..."

Nami opened the door and any intentions Usopp had of lying his way out of this died immediately. 

God, that smile hurt.

"Usopp--" Nami began but Usopp cut her off, shoving the book into her chest.

He stared at the floor between them until she took it, prying it from his quivering fingers.

"What is this?" Nami's voice was quiet.

Usopp gestured for her to open it, not one hundred percent confident in his voice just yet.

Nami flipped the book open and went totally silent. 

For a moment, all that could be heard was the gentle lapping of the waves and the steady flip of pages.

Finally, Usopp couldn't take it. "I can't get it right." He confessed to the knot in the floor boards. "The others, they're easy. But... But you've just... You're..." His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. "I can get your face down, no problem but I can't get the eyes. Every time I try, they just... They weren't right." 

Usopp chanced a glance up at Nami's expressionless face. "So I uh, practiced." He all but whispered.

The sketchbook was full of nothing but sketches of Nami. Nami laughing, Nami fighting, Nami leaning up over the bough, the wind catching her hair in a fiery halo.

Usopp stumbled through his words, anxious to make her understand. "There aren’t any of you in the other book because they’re all in this one. It's just, w-with Arlong and everything, and I just really like when you smile for real, and I'm not that good so I couldn't get every detail without practicing and--"

Nami's snort broke off his words and Usopp clamped his mouth shut so hard his teeth clacked.

Nami was grinning, a full out beautiful smile that went all the way though her eyes – the exact light dancing in her eyes that Usopp had filled a sketchbook completely trying to replicate.

She shut the book and pressed it back into his hands. "Thanks, Usopp." She said, going up on her tiptoes and pressing the lightest of kisses to his cheek. Usopp squeaked, eyes going huge and round but Nami was already retreating into her room, shutting the door with a gentle click. 

Usopp stood in the hallway, fingers to his cheek and stared at the closed door. "Uh, s-sure." He choked. 

-

Days later, Usopp finished shading his favorite drawing thus far – a group portrait, with Nami in the middle, happy and at home with her nakama.

Usopp smiled down at the picture, the heady rush of affection heavy in his chest. This was right – this was how it was supposed to be. All of them, together, chasing their dreams across the ocean.

"Hey, Hey Usopp!"

He looked up at Luffy's shout and promptly dropped his pen. Luffy was lying on his side, stretched out on the deck, head propped up on one hand. He was missing his vest, and was munching on an apple, taking massive chomping bites.

"Now draw me! Draw me like this!"

"Like hell I'm drawing you like that!" Usopp shouted, appalled. “Put a shirt on!”

The other Straw Hats howled with laughter as Luffy looked down, apparently surprised that he was missing his shirt.

Nami was leaning on the deck railing a few feet away, head thrown back and tears of laughter in her eyes, and when he looked her way, she caught his eye, her laughter dying down into a softer, easier smile.

A smile he’d finally nailed, after pages upon pages of blended pencil sketches.

A smile that, to Usopp’s immense delight, went all the way up to her eyes.


End file.
